The polygraph, and other methods of lie detection, measure the physiological arousal thought to accompany attempts to deceive. Traditional methods of lie detection, however, have failed to acquire the accuracy and consistency necessary to be relied upon in important applications. The reason for this is that there is not a sufficient understanding of why people exhibit physiological arousal when they are deceptive, and how they come to have these responses. The current thesis explores how classical conditioning can be used to explain the physiological arousal a person has to their own deception, and how this might come about in the normal social conditioning of the individual. Chapters 1 discusses the background of lie detection to this point, current methods in use, and the current understanding of why people exhibit physiological arousal when they are deceptive. Chapter 2 covers some of the technical aspects of the experiments presented in this thesis, such as the experiment programs and environment used. Chapter 3 of the current thesis examined the punishment of verbal behaviors in a person’s past conditioning can cause them to exhibit increased physiological arousal when engaging in that behavior. Chapters 4 and 5 explored the classical conditioning of eyeblink and skin conductance responses to deception and truth-value in a laboratory setting. Chapter 6 further explored the classical conditioning of a skin conductance response to instances of deception regarding an internally consistent context, and the generalization of these conditioned responses to instances of deception that only the subject knew about. In conclusion, the current thesis argued that the responses relied upon by traditional methods of lie detection can be explained using a behavioral explanation based on classical conditioning and past punishment. Classical conditioning, it is argued, can provide a more direct explanation of the responses exhibited, and potentially a powerful tool for improving the responses we rely upon to detect deception.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008. / Prepared for: Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology. Bibliography: leaves 153 - 179. Available online via the internet.

A delayed, differential, classical conditioning paradigm was used to investigate defense and reward conditioning of autonomic responses in psychopaths. The CSs were tones and the UCSs were shock and pictures of nudes. The Ss were drawn from the inmate population of a maximum security penitentiary and were classified as primary psychopaths (P), secondary psychopaths (S), and nonpsychopaths (NP), according to criteria proposed by Cleckley and Karpman. The three dependent variables of chief interest, the GSR, HR, and finger vasoconstriction, were recorded simultaneously on an Offner Type R Dynograph. Differential conditioning was expressed as the amplitude of response to a reinforced CS minus the amplitude of response to the unreinforced CS. The primary hypothesis of the study was that Group P would show less defense conditioning of electrodermal, cardiac, and vasomotor responses than would Group NP. The secondary hypothesis predicted no significant differences between Groups P and NP in amount of reward conditioning on any of the autonomic measures investigated. The results showed that of the three physiological systems studied only the electrodermal differentiated between Groups P and NP with Group P; (1) showing significantly less defense conditioning; (2) giving smaller conditioned ORs, and smaller UCRs to shock; and (3) having a significantly lower level of basal skin conductance midway through the experiment. There was no significant difference between the two groups in reward conditioning although the tendency was for Group P to give ORs and ARs of smaller amplitude than those given by Group NP. No significant difference was found between groups in shock detection threshold or shock tolerance level - hence these variables were ruled out as significant contributors to the difference in defense conditioning. It was also shown that a difference in basal conductance between Groups P and NP was not significantly related to the observed difference in conditioning. Under both defense and reward stimulus conditions all groups showed evidence of conditioned HR deceleration, and an increase in the amplitude of vasomotor responses. There was no significant difference between Groups P and NP on any index of either cardiac or vasomotor activity. The GSR findings pertaining to defense conditioning were interpreted as providing additional evidence that primary psychopaths are deficient in the acquisition of conditioned fear responses. The reward conditioning results indicate that there is still no evidence that primary psychopaths differ from nonpsychopaths in the conditioning of reward responses. The difference between the amount of electrodermal and cardiovascular conditioning shown by Group P was related to structural and functional differences between the physiological systems investigated. The results of this study seem to permit the following tentative conclusions: (1) The GSR may be a more appropriate autonomic correlate of the psychopath's emotional reactivity than is either HR or finger vasoconstriction. (2) The primary psychopath's autonomic conditioning deficit may be restricted to the GSR. (3) In comparison with nonpsychopaths primary psychopaths are deficient in the acquisition of classically conditioned fear responses expressed as electrodermal measures. (4) There is no evidence that primary psychopaths and non-psychopaths differ significantly in the acquisition of classically conditioned reward responses. (5) Relative to nonpsychopaths primary psychopaths appear to be electrodermally hyporeactive. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Adult rats produce two main types of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), occurring at 22 and 50 kHz USVs. These calls are associated with aversive and rewarding stimuli, respectively. The neural mechanism of amphetamine-induced calling was examined in lesion and antagonist studies. We also tested whether amphetamine-induced 50 kHz USVs could predict individual differences in intravenous self-administration or conditioned place preference behavior. Further experiments examined whether 50 kHz USVs could be evoked by amphetamine-conditioned sensory stimuli and by rewarding electrical brain stimulation. Overall, our experimental findings: (1) identify certain experimental conditions that increase amphetamine-induced 50 kHz calling, (2) provide evidence that these calls may be dependent on mesolimbic dopaminergic transmission, (3) relate individual differences in 50 kHz vocalizing to other behavioural measures of drug reward, and (4) show that in some situations, 50 kHz calls reflect anticipation of expected rewards.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis--University of Oklahoma. / Bibliography: leaves 154-165.

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